


Turn Into Something Beautiful

by lovethatwewerein



Series: With Some Superhuman Gifts [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, And Tina, I just dropped characters because I can apparently only create OCs related to Thad, M/M, but it's not sad i promise, hunter is mentioned and so is Sam, so that's fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:49:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovethatwewerein/pseuds/lovethatwewerein
Summary: “Marley,” Tina calls, almost skidding across the linoleum floor. She’s dressed down today, a pair of trousers and a soft jumper, and she’s almost jealous that the doctors get to wear anything that looks professional enough. “You’ve been requested in room 314. Do you think you could do it?”
Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Sebastian Smythe
Series: With Some Superhuman Gifts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050713
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	Turn Into Something Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from 'Yellow' by Coldplay.

“Marley,” Tina calls, almost skidding across the linoleum floor. She’s dressed down today, a pair of trousers and a soft jumper, and she’s almost jealous that the doctors get to wear anything that looks professional enough. “You’ve been requested in room 314. Do you think you could do it?”

“Did they move her-”

“Yeah,” Tina nods, waving to a second nurse across the way. Sam waves back, adjusting his dark blue scrubs when the child he was walking with tugs on the hem. “Smythe is already there but they need a nurse and the father requested you.”

It warms her inside, every time someone asks for her aid. There’s something extremely gratifying with each child she looks after until they’re better, until they can stand on their own two feet to gather her in their tiny arms for a hug, and sometimes there are the ones that she knows are going to stick in her heart until her dying day.

Tracy Anderson is one of them. Born premature almost six years ago, there hadn’t been many months she’d gone without seeing the family - heart difficulties from the second she fought her way onto this earth - and there was no way she’d ever forget any of them. Tracy was a warrior, taking each step with more strength than Marley might ever have, each breath a drag on her energy that she thought was worth it. And there would probably never be someone Marley admired as much as she did that girl.

Her father, Blaine, was a sweet guy, endlessly polite and so in love with his daughter that it almost hurt. She’d heard about him, broadway star dropped off the face of the planet following his divorce, and hadn’t thought much of it until she met him, slumped in an uncomfortable chair at Tracy’s bedside in rumpled clothing.

“I’ll head there now,” she says to Tina, grabbing the only stethoscope on the nurses desk because she knows she’s going to be sent to get it if she doesn’t. The doctor mutters something back before turning left with another doctor at her side. “Goodbye to you too.”

She knocks gently on the door, stethoscope dangling around her neck. She’d chosen the lilac scrubs today, something gentle but bright that contrasts the grey skies outside just enough to not seem purposeful. There’s a call of, “Come in,” and she pushes it open.

Tracy’s sitting almost fully up, three pillows stuffed behind her back for comfort and height. Blaine is smiling at her, less serious than he’s been in a week, and she grins back, handing Sebastian his missing stethoscope as she heads to the little girl’s bedside.

There’s a soft murmuring from behind her and she distracts Tracy with questions about the new teddy bear she’s clutching tightly. It’s a light blue bunny, with ears that flop downwards, and it fits with the collection of soft toys she’s gathering on the window sill, a red dinosaur to a purple whale.

“Did you sleep okay?” she asks, reaching up to switch the alarm on the oxygen monitor off. She’s here and can see clearly that it’s only a couple percent lower than it typically is. It’ll be fine within a few minutes. Tracy sticks her tongue out while nodding, tucking the thermometer under her tongue. “Did your dad get you the new teddy?”

A second nod while she digs a loose sheet of paper from her pocket, noting down oxygen levels, blood pressure and Tracy’s temperature when she gets the thermometer back. Everything is within range, perfect considering the last scare really, and Sebastian stops talking when she takes the girl’s notes from his hands.

“I have to write in them,” she argues when he glares at her, affronted. It’s a show they normally put on for the patients, a doctor and nurse duo that love each other the way siblings should and tease each other just the same, but it’s always slightly different in Tracy’s room. The one place in the hospital where Sebastian loses his cool and becomes a stuttering mess.

He concedes with his hands raised, Blaine barely covering up a laugh as he watches them. “And everything is okay?”

“I would’ve mentioned it if they weren’t,” she mumbles when she hands him back the binder, turning back to talk to Tracy about her new bunny. His name is, apparently, Meatball and the red dinosaur (affectionately named Lulu when she was two) is his sister.

Tracy chatters on about an entire world she’d built in her mind, a dreamscape where all animals lived together. Where dinosaurs and rabbits are friends and, more importantly, siblings that didn’t try to eat one another. Marley responds in all the correct places, hums and little “ahhs” that satisfy her, while listening in on the conversation Sebastian is having with Blaine. She’ll get all the details later regardless but knowing now is safer, just in case.

“You know as well as I do that she could fluctuate in the next few days,” Sebastian is telling Blaine, dragging a hand through his hair like he does when he’s out of his depth (rarely but becoming more common with every time Blaine so much as smiles at him). “We’ll monitor her closely and with the way she’s recovered over the last few weeks, she might be able to go home sometime next week.”

“Are you serious?”

Sebastian breathes deeply and there’s a tap on her shoulder, blue bunny ears almost hitting her in the face as she whips her head back around. Tracy directs her to the other end of the bed, since where she’s sitting is now lava, and she just catches Sebastian’s response of, “pretty damn sure,” before Tracy is calling for her dad to join them and Dr Smythe’s pager is beeping loudly.

*

They’ve only lived together for about a year, an easy solution to her landlord converting the building into a condo and essentially kicking her out. Sebastian had originally offered her use of his guest room until she could find a decent place to live - somewhere without crime statistics that almost guaranteed she would be robbed or a pervert lingering outside waiting until she got home.

It wasn’t like she had never found somewhere she could move into, a few apartments that worked within her budget and were safe enough, but the closer the date of her moving out, the more Sebastian had pulled away and it was only the week before she was prepared to move into her new place that she had confronted him.

“What is going on with you?” She says, handing him a beer from the fridge and taking a soda for herself. “You’ve been acting really weird for days? Did you sleep with the guy from x-ray again?”

“No, I didn’t,” he shakes his head, popping the cap off the bottle and into the bin. “I’m just worried about you moving into that new apartment. Are you sure those crime statistics were accurate and not just fabricated to get more people to rent?”

She snorts a laugh, sitting on the kitchen counter. One of them has to wash up and, based on the chore chart she stuck to the door days after moving in, it’s her turn. “Worried about poor little me in that big bad, one bedroom, half-bath, Smythe?”

“What if you forget to lock the door and someone walks in while you’re at work and waits for your return so they can stab you?”

“And steal what? My scrubs?”

“I don’t know what youths steal these days,” he yells, glaring bitterly at the label wet with condensation.

“Youths?” she teases, leaning her head back against the cupboard door. “What are you, ninety?”

He frowns at her, skimming one hand over the countertop nearest to him. There’s a second where his face gets serious, pinching in all the wrong places, and she’s so close to just going to hug him before it’s gone and he’s sipping his drink again.

“I’m just saying, I don’t see why you’re even moving out,” his gaze centres just over her shoulder, at the silver handle of the cupboard door so he can give the illusion of looking her in the eye. “It’s not like I need all the room this place provides and you’re definitely not going to be stabbed to death over the last pair of scrubs with koalas on them.”

“One, they only threatened to stab me. Two, they weren’t koalas. They were panda bears.”

“Same difference,” he argues, crossing his arms across his chest. “That still doesn’t explain why you think you need to leave. I don’t mind having you here.”

“Three days ago you said, and I quote,” she makes quotation marks with her fingers, soda still in hand. “‘When are you moving out? You have so many hair brushes that I can’t find my own anymore.’”

He shrugged, staring at the tiled flooring. “I didn’t mean it. I was just annoyed because I couldn’t find my hair brush.”

“It was in your room.”

“Don’t make this about me,” he drains the last of his beer, picking at the label as he carries on speaking. “Point is, if you move out, you could die and I think you should really consider the consequences of that before making your final decision.”

She laughs, raising her soda can towards him while he leaves the room. Maybe, just maybe, she should call the landlord to cancel her listing. Or she would, if she hadn’t already known this was going to happen.

*

Within three months of working at the hospital, she noticed how low morale could be in patients that went too long without the stimulation children needed to thrive. They were on a budget, she understood that, but not everything cost money and her talent was one of those things. So she had sought out the head of paediatrics, a serious man called Wes that appreciated the science behind children's minds more than most, who agreed to let her volunteer her time once a week for a sing along.

Tracy’s there, wearing clothing that aren’t pyjamas for the first time in days. Instead, she’s wearing a yellow dress that twirls around her knees, flowers patterned across the skirt, and Blaine is behind her, a yellow bow tie with an identically colour and pattern around his neck. She waves, shaking her cardigan off her shoulders because it’s outrageously warm in here compared to the weather outside.

Alex, one of their newer patients, sits next to his mother, gaze locked on the guitar in the corner. It’s not hers, she never learnt to play, but she has her suspicions. Meeting Blaine’s eye with a raised eyebrow, she receives a nod in return and fights a small chuckle.

“Nurse Marley,” Tracy shouts, attracting the attention of a few stragglers outside the room. Some of them enter, others continuing on their way. “Will you play my favourite one?”

“I will if you ask me properly.”

Tracy frowns before repeating herself, much quieter this time. “Will you _please_ play my favourite one?”

“Course I will,” she smiles, tucking her hair behind her ear. A part of her transforms whenever she sings, a thrill she never feels elsewhere. Her mother had always told her to follow her dreams and, maybe when she was eight, she could’ve stared at the mystique of Los Angeles and wanted that. Wanted her voice to wash over millions and make them feel something.

But, much as she loved it, it was never going to be her happy place. The competitions and rivalry already too much when she was just a high school student in a choir group. Discovering her love for looking after children, the contentment that washed over her whenever she babysat for family friends and encouraged other children that they could be whatever they wanted - that was her passion.

Becoming a nurse wasn’t the first plan. Or the second. But when her friend Unique dropped the brochure on her desk, it was the obvious one. College was tricky, getting the grades, focusing herself enough that she made it, was a mission but once the end was in sight, her opportunity to be something to as many children as she could, it was more than worth the all-nighters.

It takes her a moment to register the second voice, drifting in from somewhere behind her. It’s not Blaine, he’s staring at the other person with shock and maybe just a little bit of infatuation, so it could only ever be one another person. The song ends and she tilts her head backwards, just enough that she can see Sebastian grinning softly as the children clap.

“It’s a really good song,” he says to defend himself, winking in the direction of Blaine when the other man laughs under his breath. She rolls her eyes, handing Blaine his guitar so they can sing together - what’s the point in having an ex-broadway star in their midst if they don’t make the most of it?

*

“You should just ask him out,” Sam says around a forkful of pasta. It’s the first time they’ve all managed to go on lunch together at the same time in almost a year so they have to make the most of it. That includes making fun of Sebastian for his very obvious crush. “I don’t think there’s laws against it.”

Tina nods, pulling her phone out of her pocket. Really, none of them should be as surprised as they are that she’s checked considering the amount of times she’s fancied the parents of patients. “It’s not illegal but it’s also not as common as you’d think.”

She takes the phone before Sebastian can, reading through the photo Tina has of the rules surrounded the situation. It’s all there, in clear black and white. “They’re right. If you wanted, you could ask him out. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Sebastian narrows his eyes at her, both of them recalling the last time he’d asked the parent of a patient out. Hunter Clarington had been an incredibly strange person to deal with and, following that eventful occasion, one that remained very awkward to interact with annually.

“This isn’t another Clarington case,” she tells him, pointing the tines of her fork in his direction. “Blaine is openly gay, he’s divorced and he already knows you. There’s no reason for you not to shoot your shot.”

“Shoot your shot?” he mocks, moving from indignant moping to mocking her. She’ll accept it, but only this once. “When did you start talking dudebro?”

*

The Wednesday of the next week dawns bright and early, clear skies and joyful laughter carrying down the corridor from room 314. She’s in black scrubs this time, a playful pattern of paint splatters in different colours decorating them. They’re a new pair, sent from her mom back in Ohio, and she had been desperate to wear them since they arrived last night.

“I hear someone’s headed home,” she says, pushing the door open without knocking. Tracy almost knocks her off her feet, a spitfire now that the medications have truly taken affect on her body. She’s in jeans and a red polo, almost an exact match to her dad standing in the corner. “You excited?”

She nods, talking a mile a minute about everything she’s going to do when she’s home. Painting and dancing and seeing all of her school friends are all Marley really manages to catch before Sebastian is walking into the room through the wide open door.

Blaine says something before his phone is tucked into his pocket and she briefly wonders how she didn’t even notice he was on a call. “It was my mom. Checking in. Are we all set to go then?”

“You are,” Sebastian tells him, reaching around his neck for a stethoscope that isn’t there. She gestures to the table beside the bed where she left it when she walked in. “We’ll do a final set of observations and you’re homeward bound.”

She stands up, handing Tracy a tempa dot so she can take her temperature herself. Watching Sebastian back out of inviting Blaine to dinner or drinks or _something_ upsets her but it’s not really her place. She’ll probably have to deal with him moaning about it all week, especially Friday, but she can call him an idiot then.

“You can escape now,” she tells Tracy, sharing a secret smile with the little girl and patting her curls. She jumps up, attaching herself to Blaine’s leg and laughing. “Glad to know I’ll be missed.”

Tracy looks at her, a frown on her face. She gestured Marley closer and the other two fall silent as she kneels down beside the girl. She’s barely sitting when Tracy wraps her tiny arms. “I love you, nurse Marley.”

She’s being completely honest when she admits to Sebastian that night that she shed a few tears.

*

The call comes through a couple of days later, loud in the quiet of her bedroom. Sebastian is out with a friend from high school, Jeff, so she gets some peace and quiet for the evening.

**Blaine Anderson: Hey. I’ve kind of got a weird favour to ask.**

She responds with three question marks. It’s not that he’s never messaged her before, but it’s usually just medical questions that come through when he’s worried about a cold and its effects on Tracy.

**Blaine Anderson: Can I maybe have Sebastian’s number?**

**_Marley Rose: what for?_ **

**Blaine Anderson: I just have to ask him something.**

She laughs loudly to herself, sending Sebastian’s phone number to him. Even if her best friend is a bit of a mess, useless when confronted with someone he genuinely likes, she’s happy to help them along the way. They probably need it.

**Blaine Anderson: Thank you :)**

_**M** **arley Rose: yeah, yeah. treat him right.** _

Turning her phone off for the night, she lets a small cheer out into her pillow. Maybe her slight intervention will pay off after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm at love-that-we-were-in on tumblr.


End file.
